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Chapter 2: Accept Yourself As You Are

Just the other day I was reading about Rembrandt. He had become old, and he was working on one of his most famous paintings: The Anatomy Lesson. He was very tired the day it was completed, and he looked very exhausted. His disciple said, “Master, you look very exhausted, tired.”

The disciple could not understand the difference. He said, “The dictionary says they both mean the same.”

Rembrandt said, “Forget about the dictionary, I say it through my experience. Exhausted means wasted, empty, unfulfilled. Spent means flowered, completed, fulfilled.” And what a difference!

Don’t say you feel guilty; never use a wrong word. Drop guilt, and with the guilt you drop Christianity; with the guilt you drop Hinduism; with the guilt you drop Jainism; with the guilt you drop all nonsense that has been gathering around you. Immediately you become religious - not a Christian, not a Hindu, not a Mohammedan. Drop guilt and you become religious. Carry guilt, then guilt has many shapes - it is sold in the market in many forms and with many labels: Hindu, Christian, Mohammedan, Jain, Buddhist. No guilt.and suddenly you accept existence, and existence accepts you. A deep covenant, a deep trust arises between you and the whole. If I am teaching anything here, if it can be called a teaching at all, a very simple teaching it is: to be yourself, and never try to become anything else. If you cannot understand me it’s okay, you don’t need. Whenever you need, it happens. If you can understand something which you don’t need now, it will be dangerous. Let everything happen when it is needed; let everything follow its natural course.